11th Cir. Allows Noncompete for Part-Owner of Express Oil Stores

A noncompete contract barring a Georgia automotive service manager from opening his own shop can’t be presumed unreasonable on the grounds of its four-year duration, since he was an owner involved in his prior company’s sale, a federal appeals court found.

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday partly affirmed and partly vacated a US district court’s injunction blocking Express Oil Change from enforcing a noncompete against Charles Baldwin. While a three-judge panel of the appeals court agreed with the lower court that the geographic scope was overly broad, it found the lower court applied the ...